Our Tour begins today when we meet at 3:30 PM at the Orte Train station, which is a major rail hub between Rome and Florence.This is an extremely easy place to meet, as trains go here from nearly all major cities (Rome, Florence, Naples, Venice, Milan, etc.), as well as the Rome airport. We will help you choose the right train to get based on where you will be coming from. Note that we do not offer Airport shuttle service for our four and five day cooking vacations, but if you like, we can help arrange a private driver for you.

Once we are all together, we will proceed to our home-base of Soriano nel Cimino, which is just 15 minutes from the Orte station.

Once in Soriano we will help you to your accommodations for the next four nights and give you some time to get settled in, unpack and rest up. As you get settled in, you will find some snacks and drinks waiting for you when you get to your home.

At around 5:30PM, we will meet for a casual walking tour of Soriano’s medieval quarter. We’ll have a walk around the narrow streets of this beautiful area. During our walk we’ll do some shopping in the local grocers, butchers and vegetable stands for tomorrow's cooking class. We'll also stop in the studio of the extremely talented local artist, Riccardo Sanna and have a look at what he is working on.

After our walk, we will stop in a local Gelato shop for one of our signature daily activities: Gelato! We believe it is your duty to have at least one gelato per day when you are here, so we will get right to it. While having our gelato, we'll talk about the days ahead and get to know one another a little more.

For dinner tonight we will dine in an ancient monastery in Soriano that has been converted to a wonderful restaurant. Here we will sample many local specialties in the first of many multi-course meals as we dive head first in Italian culinary culture. The menu for tonight’s dinner is:

Appetizer:
A sampling of Local Salame, Prosciutto, Porcini Bruschetta, Olive Bruschetta, Ascoline Olives (fried sausage-stuffed olives), and Sutrini (a local crepe with romano cheese)

First Course
For our first course tonight, we will have samplings of two local pasta dishes: Gnocchi col Ferro (a local specialty eggless pasta that is hand rolled in an Arrabiata sauce) and Ciuffetti Sorianesi (hand made pasta purses, stuffed with radicchio and speck in a parmesan cream sauce).

Second Course
After our pasta dishes we will sample local grilled sausages and tagliata al aceto balsamico (A grilled steak, marinated in balsamic vinegar atop a bed of rucola salad)

Dessert
Finally we will be brought a lemon sorbet dessert and end our evening with a glass of Limoncello

As always, wine is provided with all dinners, and we favor small local wineries wherever we dine. Tonight's wine will be a local red Umbrian wine.

Day 2 (Friday)
An Olive Mill &Winery, Orvieto + Risotto Class

This morning we will all meet in a local coffee bar and pastry shop in Soriano’s main Piazza. Here we will have our traditional Italian breakfast of freshly baked pastries and cappuccino.

After breakfast we will drive to the Umbrian city of Orvieto which is the home to one of Italy’s most magnificent cathedrals, as well as the world-renowned white Orvieto Classico wine and beautiful ceramics shops.. Here we will give you the morning free to explore the Duomo & shop in this wonderful cliff-top town.

In the early afternoon,t we will take a short drive to a small family-run winery and antique olive mill in the village of Castiglione in Teverina. Here, one of the owners will give us a private tour of their wine cellar and olive mill, followed by a tasting of their line of wines and their olive oil. As we are tasting, we will have a wonderful buffet lunch in their garden made by the owners with many local delicacies, and of course… their wine!

Next we will take the short drive down to our 18th century villa in the countryside below Soriano where our classes will take place.

Today's class will start out with what is without question our most popular appetizer: Panzanella is a Tuscan bread salad made with fresh tomatoes from our local gardens, onion, olive oil, vinegar, and other various fresh veggies growing outside.

For our first course, we will prepare a Raddichio & Proscuitto Cream Risotto, followed by our family recipe for Tuscan roasted chicken & potatoes that we promise will leave you in absolute awe.

Finally for dessert we will be preparing our family recipe for Tiramisu, which is guaranteed to be the best you have ever tasted.

Dinner tonight will be the results of our afternoon of cooking!

Day 3 (Saturday)
A Day of Wine, Cheese & The Gregorian Chant in Tuscany

After our morning breakfast we will head out for a day full of wine, cheese & more in beautiful Southern Tuscany.

We'll start by driving to our furthest point, the town of Castelnuovo d'Abate. To get there, we will be driving the famous Orcia Valley Wine Trail through this picturesque wine region which evokes the classic image of Tuscan rolling hills. This is the area of Tuscany that most of us think of, seen in many well-known movies, such as Under the Tuscan Sun, Life is Beautiful, and many more.

As we arrive, we will visit the St. Antimo Abbey, a beautiful Romanesque church that dates back to the 9th century. It sits in a valley just outside of Montalcino, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves. Here we will witness the monks of the abbey as they do the Gregorian Chant during a brief service.

After the service, we will go to nearby Montalcino, home of what is arguably the best of all Italian wines: Brunello. Instead of going to the big wineries for impersonal tastings like other tours, we have something something truly exclusive in store for you today. We will visit the small, private Croce di Mezzo winery in Montalcino which shares a fenceline with Biondi Santi and Fattoria dei Barbi.

We will be hosted to a wonderful lunch with the owners of the estate, as we sample their Brunello wine with our meal. As we have lunch together, they will share their family history with you and answer any question you can imagine. You are sure to fall in love with this gracious family. It is always one of the major highlights on our weeks, and provides for a truly exclusive and unique Brunello experience. After lunch, they will treat us to a private tour of their cellars and vineyards before we move on.

If we have time after lunch, and if anyone in our group would like, we will make a stop at the Casanova di Neri winery in Montalcino, which is widely considered the best of the Brunello wines... So much so that their 2001 Brunello was rated as the #1 wine of the year by Wine Spectator Magazine in 2006.

Next, we’ll take the short drive to beautiful Pienza, known for its incredible Pecorino cheese. You will have a some time to walk around this charming village, do some Pecorino cheese tastings and some shopping before we leave for the town of Montepulciano, where we will do our final wine tasting and tour of the day.

Montepulciano is known for its Vino Nobile wine, a competitor for the Brunellos. Here we will tour the town’s ancient 14th century cellar that was built underneath the Palace of Cardinal Ricci and is widely considered to be the most beautiful wine cellar in the world. After the cellar tour, we will participate in a complete tasting of Montepulciano’s fantastic wines. Those that have seen the 2009 film 'New Moon' (The sequel to 'Twilight') will recognize this wine cellar and other areas of town from the movie.

After this long day, we will drive back to Soriano where we will have a buffet dinner waiting for us at the Papacqua Fountain Park in Soriano, at the base of the 16th century Chigi Palace.

Day 4 (Sunday)
Country Wood-Fired Pizza Class & The Dying City

At around 10:30 AM, we will head out for the nearby dying city of Civita di Bagnoregio, a nearly deserted town that was originally built by the Etruscans in the 6th century BC. It is called the dying city because it is literally crumbling away thanks to thousands of years of erosion, to the point that it is now accessible only by a foot bridge. Civita resembles a ghost town, but is extremely well kept as a place where time is frozen. While there, we will visit Civita's ancient olive mill that was built by the ancient Etruscans and have lunch in a lovely little trattoria in what is left of the town.

After lunch, we will drive back to the villa for our final (and always most popular) class of the week: Country Wood-Fired Pizza!

In Italy, making Pizza is a social event, similar to the way many of us think of having a Barbeque. It is a time of fun and laughter where bonds are forged. It is a truly special experience while the group shares the homemade pizza one tray at a time as it is pulled from the wood-fired brick oven and carried piping hot to the garden table under the vines and stars.

We will prepare several kinds of dough, and prepare the fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, and many other ingredients for this wonderful evening together. Each person will help while they learn every stage of this event. You will make the dough, drink some wine, prepare the ingredients, drink some wine, help fire up the oven, drink some wine, and even handle the peel as the pizza cooks.... and then we will drink some wine! It will be true Italian country pizza, like nothing you have ever experienced.

We’ll learn to make Focaccia, Pizza Margherita, Sweet Onion pizza, Sausage & Porcini Pizza, and for dessert we will have Sugar Pizza and finally Nutella Pizza.

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Day 5 (Monday)
Home-Made Fettuccine Class & Farewell...

We'll start the day with breakfast, followed by shopping for today's class. We’ll visit the village grocers, butchers, vegetable stands, etc. as we shop with the locals. For those that would rather sleep in than shop, we'll meet after shopping before we head down to the villa again for our final cooking class.

Today we will learn the secrets of making homemade Fettuccini from scratch, and prepare a wonderful Bolognese sauce for it that has been passed down through the generations in our family.

Our appetizer today will be a wonderful Bruschetta topped with a mixture of local sausage and stracchino cheese.

Our second course will be Brasato al Vino Nobile, a roast braised in exclusive Vino Nobile di Montepulciano wine (that we will have been marinating since our Tuesaday class).

Our side will be sauteed veggies from the garden outside, followed by an Amaretto-Plum Crostata (a baked dessert tart) for dessert.

After lunch, we will rest up a bit before we end our time together. We will have brought your bags down to the villa, and in the afternoon we will bring you back to the Orte train station, where you can get trains to take you onward to almost any destination in Italy. Note that we do not offer Airport shuttle service for our four and five day cooking vacations, but if you like, we can help arrange a private driver for you.

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